Reading is the key to life

I cannot over emphasise the value of parents reading to and with their children every day – no matter what their age. Reading is the key to life. It opens doors in ways we can only imagine. No other learning in any area can be accomplished without the ability to read. It is imperative that every child develops a love of reading and learns to read as voraciously as we can manage.

As educators, we ask you to read daily with your child – if you can only manage 10 minutes, then make it 10 minutes you sit with your child every day and read. (20 minutes is best, though.) If your child is continuing learning sight words, these too need to be visited daily. A child’s reading ability is only as good as the partnership between your child’s teacher and you. It really does take a village to raise a child. Your child’s teacher is teaching reading skills every day – it is the most important learning area there is. But these skills are worthless to your child is they are not reinforced at home with the time taken to sit with your child and read for the love of it.

It is all of our responsibilities to engage in our children’s education and to show them the value that is within. If we encourage daily reading, sight words, spelling, letter and sound recognition, then we will see progress in every child. 

Children are never too big or grown up to be read to. As adults you have access to more advanced concepts and comprehension and ways of reading than any primary aged child could ever achieve. Read aloud to your children every day. Talk through how you have comprehended the text, discuss the tricky vocabulary and grammar and how you figured it out, talk about other texts written by the same author – you will be amazed how fast and how much children learn from this – not just about reading, but about the world and it’s peoples in general.

Just try – commit to reading with/to your child for at least 10 minutes a day for the rest of the term and just watch the progress. Massive hand claps to those of you who already do!

I love my white shoes

Developing resilience is such an important part of education and parenting. And when a little ditty that gets stuck in people's heads comes along to cement that idea, it's serendipity!.

Earlier in the year Prep A delighted Assembly with their little song and play from Pete the Cat. Ever since whenever any of us looks tempted to sweat the small stuff someone sings 'I love my white shoes...'

Not sure what I'm talking about? Take a look at this

Me - I actually like red shoes!

Because it's all good...

Learning to struggle

There's a growing body of writing focusing on the importance of finding learning difficult in the overall development of children. And there is a plethora of examples comparing the difference between Eastern and Western classrooms and parenting.

A post by Alix Spiegel discusses the differences eloquently.

Over the years I've been an educator I've seen an interesting phenomena develop. We (parents and teachers) don't like to see our children find things hard. We don't like them to have to struggle for too long. We don't like them becoming distressed if they can't do something, and over time we have rescued and rescued and now we have many many children who simply don't make the link between hard work, struggling with a problem, perseverance and achievement. The net result is that children give up too quickly, and perhaps, are not learning to live with a feeling of 'uncomfortableness' for any amount of time.

I recently witnessed my own daughter struggling with studying for an end of year exam in anatomy. The procrastination, the complaints about the teacher, the whining about not being smart enough and 'everyone else is so clever; I'm not' and the claims that 'we haven't even been taught this' were extraordinarily creative. It really took me by surprise. And it took her more by surprise when I said, 'Yes, anatomy is hard, and no, it's not good enough to be able to give a detailed description of the digestive system when the exam requires one about the eye! Clearly you haven't studied enough and you're going to have to work at it harder now'. And I couldn't resist adding 'I hope you've learned your lesson'. (I probably could have done without that last comment!)

I often hear teachers comment that the children in their classes that find learning more difficult (eg. have to try harder to get the same result another has achieved effortlessly) are the ones who seem to be able to work away at a problem and who have developed a tolerance to having to struggle a bit - as opposed to the ones who have been rescued, and have learned they can just give up.

The problems of our future require people who can struggle away at something very hard and not find that uncomfortable feeling so distressing they don't want to continue. As parents we need to let our children struggle and encourage them to view the struggle positively. We need to let them find things hard and not rush in to rescue them, worrying that their 'distress' is going to cause some unimaginable harm.  In the end the harm it may cause is a generation of children not willing to persist and not willing to struggle to achieve something great.

The Art of Persuasion ... Letters from 2B

For the past two years the writing task in the National Assessment Program in Literacy and Numeracy (otherwise known as NAPLAN) has assessed the ability of students in Years 3, 5 and 7 to write persuasively. And so it is, that at this time of the year our Year 2 students turn their sights towards learning and consolidating this important life skill.

During the week I received a package of beautifully presented (handwritten) letters from 2B. On top was a sticky note, 'Hi Gwen, 2B feel quite strongly about an issue and thought the best thing to do would be to persuade you to their point of view. It is our first go at persuasion and they had a bit of guidance. I know you're busy so thanks for reading them. The kids are looking forward to your response. Bec'

Hmmmmm... Well, firstly, I'm NEVER too busy to read a child's work, to listen to them read or see one (or more) that present to my office full of pride with a job well done. Secondly, I had a pretty good idea they were going to try and persuade me to say 'yes' to something I'd want to say 'no' to!

And so - what did they want? I read 24 letters imploring me to allow them to bring toy cars to school. They demonstrated true generic style by stating upfront what they wanted and then presenting all the reasons why I should say yes, and finishing off with a summary. It was priceless.

I was informed that playing with cars was better than fighting; that kids were allowed to bring a ball to school and didn't I know that a ball was a toy?; that playing with cars was cooler than running around in the hot sun; that they had lost their privileges to borrow equipment from the sports shed and had nothing to do (???); that they could play in the shade if they had cars; that small cars are a lot of fun; that being able to play with them would encourage them to play 'friendly' and share; that teachers 'needed to get over it' - this, I found somewhat less persuasive; that the adventure playground was too small for everyone; and so it went on.

The fact is, we prefer children don't bring toys to school, as a rule. Losses and breakages cause much angst, and parents and children are rarely happy with the outcome of an investigation which has usually taken up far too much of the teacher's time. But I've never been very good at saying 'no' to kids! Especially when they ask for what they want responsibly and through using a tool that is well recognised as purposeful in achieving social action. 'Yes, if..' can be a far more useful response for building responsibility and teaching important life skills without the interference of the resentfulness an outright 'no' often brings.

So, my reply to them was:
Thank you very much for your letters regarding being able to bring toy cars to school to play with at play time. They were very well written and I enjoyed reading them.

The fact is that we have a rule at school about not allowing toys because often toys get broken or taken and the time it takes to sort out the problem means students are missing out on learning – and most times people can't agree on how the toy was lost or taken.

I agree that we have let children bring the balls they won at the Lap-a-thon to school. This was on the understanding that if they went missing, then it's sad but the teachers are not going to chase around looking for it. Other sorts of toys must be left at home.

So, as your letters were very good at persuading me to think about this more I have decided that if you would like to bring your cars to school you must have a plan that describes things like who can bring cars, how many, where you will play, what happens if one is lost or broken. The plan must have agreement from Ms Brian and all the other staff who do duty in the area where you play. The other teachers need to agree because their children will want to bring cars too.

Let me know what you decide and thank you for being so respectful in asking for what you want. If you can learn to do this well then you will have learned a very useful skill for life.

I remembered belatedly I hadn't included that the plan must state how they will play with the cars without digging up the grass and gardens! I ventured into the playground shortly after pressing send (my reply was an email) and was besieged by students from 2B excitedly informing me they were writing me another letter. I'm assuming it will be the plan and I'm expecting it to be VERY persuasive!

Meanwhile, that evening I was watching Better Homes and Gardens and the handy presenter built a gorgeous sandpit seat - is there a Dad out there who would like to build us one of these? Seemed like the perfect solution to me!

Check, check and check again

Wearing red at Peregian Springs State School

Yesterday was 'Day for Daniel' - a day when we all wear some red (a colour that has become synonymous with child safety) to promote awareness of the protection of children in our community. Daniel Morcombe was abducted at the end of 2003. Our children have lived with his disappearance all their lives. We, as parents and teachers, have lived with the tragedy and the heartbreaking sadness of the Morcombe family for nearly ten years. A sentiment this strong tends to create a climate of fear and a tendency to overprotect our kids by hovering over them, warning them and tethering them to us closely.

When you think your child has disappeared it is a gut wrenching, heart stopping, sickening feeling of total panic and loss of all rational reasoning. Shortly after Daniel disappeared my daughter (ten at the time) was supposed to be catching the bus from school just 3km into Noosa Junction to where my husband works - simple, just get on the bus outside the school, there's a teacher on duty, sit next to someone you know, get off the bus at the stop outside Dad's office - what could go wrong?

At 4.00pm Rick rings me (I was in Brisbane) and then came the news - 'have you got Maddie? She hasn't come here. I've been looking for her all over the Junction. I've rung the school. I've rung the bus company. We don't know where she is.' It was like a heart attack. I was at least a two hour drive away and Rick was in a mad panic.

After half an hour of madness, phone calls, checking with friends, checking with Maddie's friends, and rechecking all over again while trying not to scream at everyone who said 'no, we haven't seen her', we finally located her at the bus depot in Tewantin.

What the bus company hadn't told us was that the school bus went to the high school where she was supposed to get off and get on a different bus that went to the Junction. As the bus she was on sailed past the end of the Sunshine Beach Road she told the driver she needed to get off. 'No, we don't stop here - you'll have to stay on', she was told. Well, at least it was a happy ending. There is a bit more to this story that I'll tell another time but the point I'm trying to make is that as parents we need to check and check and check AND we also need to make sure our children are building the skills of resilience, self-reliance and problem solving.

Hovering, tethering and warning frightens them - as a parent said to me this week 'Gwen, they think there's a paedophile on every corner'. Of course, there isn't but our kids need to be able to recognise the signs that tell them something is a 'bit off' and then have some behaviours they have practised to remove themselves from the situation. Our student protection lessons at school are about this very thing and on Assembly on Friday 3L demonstrated this brilliantly with their three little skits.

So Day for Daniel is over again for another year, our awareness is heightened and our safety skills are honed...and at 4.10pm as we were all packing up at the end of a week in comes a Dad 'My daughter didn't get of the bus. We don't know where she is'.

Thankfully, another happy ending - she had missed her stop and had to stay on!